Background
Hall, Oakley Maxwell was born on July 1, 1920 in San Diego, California, United States. Son of Oakley Maxwell and Jessie Maude (Sands) Hall.
(Like a muse for the writer, Oakley Hall thoughtfully lead...)
Like a muse for the writer, Oakley Hall thoughtfully leads us past the sinkholes of cliches, flat prose, and self-conscious writing and guides us toward the magic of vivid and original storytelling. ...An essential resource for any writer -- beginning, published, or just plain stuck. -- Amy TanOakley Hall cites the works and methods of such great novelists as John Steinbeck, Joyce Carol Oates, Leo Tolstoy, Agatha Christie and Milan Kundera to show readers what works in the novel, and why. This book features advice on taking a novel through each of its stages, from the beginning of an idea to The End, and guides writers through the process of writing a novel.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1884910025/?tag=2022091-20
(When the Morton Street Slasher leaves the corpses of his ...)
When the Morton Street Slasher leaves the corpses of his victims on the tangled gaslit streets near San Francisco's Union Square, he marks each body with a playing card. Ambrose "Bitter" Bierce, the city's famed newspaperman, immediately blames the rash of murders on his sworn enemies, the Southern Pacific Railway magnates. Bierce and his young protege at the Hornet, Tom Redmond, set out to solve the case, uncovering conspiracy and corruption at every turn. Smart, funny, and compulsively readable, Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades is more than a simple murder mystery. Like Caleb Carr's The Alienist and E. L. Doctorow's The Waterworks, it exposes the sordid underbelly of Gilded Age America. "Hall conjures up a wonderfully yeasty San Francisco in the 1870s. . . . The dialogue and detail are sung with perfect pitch."-- Chicago Tribune "Oakley Hall is a novelist who never seems to make a wrong move. . . . He is a writer to read again and again."-- Richard Ford "One of the country's finest writers"(Robert Stone)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140288600/?tag=2022091-20
(Ambrose "Bitter" Bierce, San Francisco’s infamous and leg...)
Ambrose "Bitter" Bierce, San Francisco’s infamous and legendary newspaperman and sometime sleuth is hardly surprised to be hired by William Randolph Hearst when his mistress receives threats. In steamy Sausalito, the playground of the rich and famous across the bay, Hearst’s isn’t the only case on the boil. While Ambrose and his sidekick, Tom Redmond, hunt the killer of a hard-partying yachtsman, Tom becomes entangled with the queen of the Portuguese Pentecostal feast. When Hearst’s house photographer turns up dead Ambrose faces a web of murder and mystery.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142000140/?tag=2022091-20
(36 pages ; 26 cm Other Titles: Angle of repose. Responsib...)
36 pages ; 26 cm Other Titles: Angle of repose. Responsibility: libretto by Oakley Hall ; music by Andrew Imbrie.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006D17B2/?tag=2022091-20
(When three pretty young suffragists known as the Trey of ...)
When three pretty young suffragists known as the Trey of Pearls come to San Francisco, the city’s brawling and unrefined men whip themselves into a lather of desire and defiance. But the murder of Reverend Divine, the famous advocate of spiritualism, temperance, and the female vote, sets Ambrose Bierce and Tom Redmond on the trail to uncover a darker side to the girls’ composure and comeliness—free love, a jeweled harem, and a web of San Francisco’s most powerful men desperately trying to cover their pasts. As the two sleuths begin to glimpse the truth, the body count builds and tensions—both political and social—erupt into a standoff among suffragists, hard-drinking diehards, and, lurking in the shadows, the elusive murderer.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670032700/?tag=2022091-20
(A compulsively readable historical thriller from "one of ...)
A compulsively readable historical thriller from "one of the country's finest writers." (Robert Stone) An accomplished writer in several genres of fiction, veteran novelist Oakley Hall has been praised as "a novelist who never seems to make a wrong move. . . . He is a writer to read again and again" (Richard Ford). The San Francisco Chronicle has included him—along with Wallace Stegner, John Steinbeck, and Larry McMurtry—in its "Western 100" list of the best twentieth-century works of fiction written by an author from the American West. Now, Hall unveils the riveting and entertaining sequel to his acclaimed Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades. Once again the hero is the historical figure Ambrose Bierce—William Randolph Hearst's star journalist and San Francisco's most celebrated writer. This time Bierce is investigating the disappearance of a Hawaiian princess attached to King Kalakaua's entourage. As the aged king slowly expires in the Palace Hotel's Royal Suite, San Francisco plays host to a throng of Hawaiian royal courtiers and counselors embroiled in a swirl of political intrigue surrounding the successor to the throne. As Bierce and his protégé, Tom Redmond, search for the missing princess, Hall weaves a wonderfully tangled narrative of murder and mystery. Intelligent, gripping, and often humorous, Ambrose Bierce and the Death of Kings will appeal to all readers of mysteries, adventure tales, and historical novels.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142001333/?tag=2022091-20
(Oakley Hall cites the works and methods of great novelist...)
Oakley Hall cites the works and methods of great novelists to show readers what works in the novel and why. This book features advice on taking a novel through each of its stages, guiding writers through the process of writing a novel.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0898793467/?tag=2022091-20
(Oakley Hall's legendary Warlock revisits and reworks the ...)
Oakley Hall's legendary Warlock revisits and reworks the traditional conventions of the Western to present a raw, funny, hypnotic, ultimately devastating picture of American unreality. First published in the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, Warlock is not only one of the most original and entertaining of modern American novels but a lasting contribution to American fiction. "Tombstone, Arizona, during the 1880's is, in ways, our national Camelot: a never-never land where American virtues are embodied in the Earps, and the opposite evils in the Clanton gang; where the confrontation at the OK Corral takes on some of the dry purity of the Arthurian joust. Oakley Hall, in his very fine novel Warlock has restored to the myth of Tombstone its full, mortal, blooded humanity. Wyatt Earp is transmogrified into a gunfighter named Blaisdell who . . . is summoned to the embattled town of Warlock by a committee of nervous citizens expressly to be a hero, but finds that he cannot, at last, live up to his image; that there is a flaw not only in him, but also, we feel, in the entire set of assumptions that have allowed the image to exist. . . . Before the agonized epic of Warlock is over with—the rebellion of the proto-Wobblies working in the mines, the struggling for political control of the area, the gunfighting, mob violence, the personal crises of those in power—the collective awareness that is Warlock must face its own inescapable Horror: that what is called society, with its law and order, is as frail, as precarious, as flesh and can be snuffed out and assimilated back into the desert as easily as a corpse can. It is the deep sensitivity to abysses that makes Warlock one of our best American novels. For we are a nation that can, many of us, toss with all aplomb our candy wrapper into the Grand Canyon itself, snap a color shot and drive away; and we need voices like Oakley Hall's to remind us how far that piece of paper, still fluttering brightly behind us, has to fall." —Thomas Pynchon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590171616/?tag=2022091-20
(From Thomas Pynchon to Richard Ford, Amy Tan to Diane Joh...)
From Thomas Pynchon to Richard Ford, Amy Tan to Diane Johnson, the list of devotees of the Ambrose Bierce mystery series continues to grow as the larger-than-life hero tracks down California’s most malevolent criminal minds. In this rough-and-tumble romp through gritty Old San Francisco, Ambrose Bierce and his faithful associate Tom Redmond are on the trail of a celebrity sniper. Amid seduction, revenge, wing shots, ambuscades, knife throwers, free-love colonies, a friendly opium parlor, and a letter from Queen Victoria, Ambrose Bierce and Tom Redmond must turn up the true killer.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143036815/?tag=2022091-20
(In How Fiction Works, Oakley Hall expands upon and broade...)
In How Fiction Works, Oakley Hall expands upon and broadens the instruction that made The Art and Craft of Novel Writing so successful. This new book covers all forms and lengths of fiction, probes deeper into every topic, offers new examples and includes exercises and the end of every chapter. He explains the basic and finer points of the fiction-writing process from word choice and imagery to authority and viewpoint. The book is divided into three sections, beginning with "The Basics." In this section, Hall explores the micro elements of storytelling, such as details, word choice, images, symbol and metaphor. He then moves on! to "The Elements," which covers the primary elements of fiction: point of view, characterization and plot. Citing numerous examples from classic and contemporary work, he shows readers how these elements function separately and in concert. Finally, the focus shifts to the specific types of fiction - short shorts, short stories, novellas, and novels - also known as "The Forms." Each form presents a unique challenge to the writer, and Hall explains how to meet those challenges. Beginning, as well as more advanced writers, will find much to like about this book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1884910491/?tag=2022091-20
writer English language educator
Hall, Oakley Maxwell was born on July 1, 1920 in San Diego, California, United States. Son of Oakley Maxwell and Jessie Maude (Sands) Hall.
Bachelor, University California, 1943. Master of Fine Arts, University Iowa, 1950.
Director programs in writing, University of California, Irvine, 1970-1989; Professor of English, University of California, Irvine, 1967-1990; emeritus, 1990. Board directors Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Olympic Valley, California.
(From Thomas Pynchon to Richard Ford, Amy Tan to Diane Joh...)
(Like a muse for the writer, Oakley Hall thoughtfully lead...)
(Ambrose "Bitter" Bierce, San Francisco’s infamous and leg...)
(Oakley Hall's legendary Warlock revisits and reworks the ...)
(When three pretty young suffragists known as the Trey of ...)
(When the Morton Street Slasher leaves the corpses of his ...)
(In How Fiction Works, Oakley Hall expands upon and broade...)
(Oakley Hall cites the works and methods of great novelist...)
(A compulsively readable historical thriller from "one of ...)
(Corpus Of Joe Bailey, by Oakley Hall, Viking Press 1953, ...)
(36 pages ; 26 cm Other Titles: Angle of repose. Responsib...)
(Book by Hall, Oakley M)
(Book by Hall, Oakley M)
(Reprint)
Member California Tennis Club, San Francisco Writers Round Table.
Married Barbara Edinger, June 28, 1945. Children: Oakley III, Sands, Tracy, Brett.